SPECIAL REPORT: ROUTE DEVELOPMENT
Sunny delight! Miami International Airport’s route network continues to grow with Emirates launching services to Dubai and Southwest and JetBlue joining the gateway’s low-cost carriers, writes MIA’s communications director, Greg Chin.
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atar, Emirates, Turkish Airlines, EL AL Israel Airlines and American Airlines will offer non-stop flights to the Middle East from Miami International Airport (MIA) this summer after the June 4 inaguration of American’s service to Tel Aviv and the launch of Emirates’ four-times weekly service between Miami and Dubai on July 22. The new international services represent signficant route development success for MIA, which in the last year has also added both Southwest Airlines and JetBlue to our growing list of low-cost carriers (LCCs). The addition of Southwest and JetBlue, as well as the recent increased expansion by Frontier Airlines, are the culmination of recruitment efforts by the Miami-Dade Aviation Department (MDAD) that date back from as recently as two years ago to as long ago as 15 years. MDAD’s air service development efforts, in conjunction with air service consultants at InterVISTAS, have consistently targeted these carriers over the previously mentioned range of time. There are numerous and varying reasons why their expansion and entry occurred within the last year, but there was always belief that eventually their growth strategies would encompass MIA as well. In the case of all three LCCs, incentives did not play a major role in their recruitment. It is our belief that our persistence, ongoing analyses and growth of specific markets, MIA’s ability to keep its costs level and under control, combined with each carrier’s long-term expansion plans, all culminated in their ultimate and respective decisions to choose MIA. After launching its first Miami flights last November by serving both Baltimore and Houston Hobby with four daily flights and Chicago
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AIRPORT WORLD/ISSUE 3, 2021
Midway with a daily flight, Southwest expanded its route network from MIA in March 2021 by adding daily service to four more destinations: Atlanta; Dallas; Denver; and Nashville. The new routes increased Southwest’s presence at MIA to a current total of 16 daily flights. Southwest’s twice-daily flights to Atlanta, Denver and Nashville provides Miami passengers with another travel option to those cities, while its daily service to Dallas Love Field Airport establishes a new route from MIA. Southwest entered the Miami market last November. Its weekly flight schedule is already projected to generate an economic impact of more than $853 million in local business revenue and 6,788 jobs within the local economy annually. On February 11 – JetBlue’s 21st birthday – the airline began its first Miami flights with service to four US cities: Boston (up to four times daily); Los Angeles (up to twice daily); New York-JFK (up to four times daily); and Newark (up to four times daily). One month later, JetBlue announced plans to add daily Hartford service to its Miami network on June 24. The new service will bring JetBlue’s daily flights at MIA to a total of 15. MIA estimates that JetBlue’s full schedule of flights will generate more than 1.4 million passengers, nearly $915 million in business revenue and 7,300 jobs into the local economy annually. Frontier first entered the Miami market in 2014 with service to Denver, New York-LaGuardia, Philadelphia and Chicago O’Hare. Since then, it has gradually expanded its Miami network to 29 current cities. Most recently, it began three weekly flights to Santo Domingo in December 2020, followed by service launches to three new cities before
